The cutting, or routing, of flutes in a workpiece, such as a board, has been done for many years. Typically in a woodworking context, flutes are routed in a board using a router table, which is well known in the industry. A typical router table has a router attached to the underside of the table whereby a router bit protrudes upward through an opening in the table surface. Boards or other workpieces are then moved across the router table and over the rotating router bit, whereby a flute is cut or routed in the board.
A typical router table also has a router fence attached to it, which can be used to guide a workpiece as it is being slid across the router table. Typically, the router fence is slidably adjusted on the router table to accommodate different width workpieces or to facilitate the alignment of the flute on the workpiece. If multiple flutes are desired on a workpiece, the router fence is moved relative to the router bit to permit the workpiece to be guided along a different line relative to the router bit to create another flute on the workpiece.
While the routing of a flute in a workpiece can be a fairly straightforward process, the measuring and aligning of the workpiece to create equally-spaced multiple flutes can be a very time-consuming and tedious process. Before a flute in a workpiece is routed, the router fence must be adjusted relative to the router bit so that it will route a flute along a desired line on the workpiece. If more than one flute is desired, the measuring and alignment process must be repeated, and if equally spaced flutes are desired, additional care must be taken to ensure the necessary alignment is properly set.
The preparation of a workpiece to be routed is further complicated when stop-flutes are desired to be routed in the workpiece. In other words, when a craftsman desires to have a flute stop at some point short of the end of the workpiece, another measurement and mark typically must be made, and extreme care must be taken when the workpiece is slid over the router bit to ensure that only the desired length of the flute is actually routed. In some cases, errors in measurement, or errors in alignment and routing, can cause the entire workpiece to become unusable for the desired application, and it must be discarded.
Accordingly, there is a need to minimize the setup time required to route one flute, or more than one equally-spaced and aligned flutes in a workpiece. There is also a need to minimize the setup time required to route one or more equally-spaced and positioned stop-flutes in a workpiece.